The Runner
by godsandmonsters
Summary: Set post 3x06 Sideswipe. Alex is having a restless night which in turn, leads to a late night phone call hoping to mend disconnected hearts.


Hi everyone! Thanks for the reviews so far, I just wanted to make note that this is not a one-shot, but there will be two (I'm shooting for three total, not 100% sure yet) additional chapters after this. I also wrote some parts a really long time ago during season two but never finished them, so this time around I wrote around the parts that still fit contextually and tried to make it work. Hopefully it doesn't come off too choppy. Anyway, thanks for reading!

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The room was dark with no sound within earshot. Alex smoothed out the surrounding material that engulfed her, attempting to soothe her own racing mind with the softness of the sheets. Sometimes she had nightmares that refused her from getting any sleep, and then there were nights where her sobs exhausted her so much that she hadn't the strength to keep her eyes open. She made her living by killing covert government agents and doubled as an heir to a billion dollar company gone corrupt. It would be a bit of an understatement to say sleep was not easy to come by.

She shifted a bit under the sheets and began studying the night stand beside her bed. The intent staring caused a strain on her eyes, but she ignored it. What rested on the table top were her phone, a loaded glock, and a little orange bottle of pills. All three acting as a triangular prism of pressure upon her shoulders.

That figurative pressure transcended into literal though when a sudden surge of pain shot through her shoulder injury. She sat up, switched on the table lamp, and stretched her limbs a bit.

When she climbed out the bed, her bare feet landed on the cold wooden floors of her apartment. She always forgot to turn on the heat when she got in late. It was almost like self-sabotage how she hadn't taken the opportunity to make her new place feel homier- the furniture was sparse and the walls bare. The fridge was near empty with the exception of some carrot and celery sticks and almond milk. When she lived in the Division appointed apartment as a field operative, it was impossible to feel at ease being under constant surveillance. Then there was the whole period when she worked with Amanda, and she never found the time to move to a new place. It wasn't until after Team Nikita took down Division that Nikita finally sat Alex down, and told her like it was: "You need your own place. If I see you crashing in your old recruit room one more time this week, I'm kidnapping you back to me and Michael's."

Thus the apartment hunting began, and Sean happened to 'know of a place' that was 'just about perfect for her'. She wasn't sure if it was perfect, but it would do for now.

The thin t-shirt she wore wasn't doing much to combat against the cold, so she grabbed one of the blankets draped along her bed and wrapped it around herself to venture to the kitchen. Her plan was to brew a cup of tea to take some of the edge off, or at least distract herself from popping another pill.

The first thing her eyes targeted once she entered her bedroom again was the nightstand full of options. She walked over and placed her mug down. Hesitantly, she reached for the bottle of pills and held it in her hand. She then took a deep breath and used her other hand to pull open the bottom drawer, throwing the pills inside.

Option number two was her phone.

She didn't want to succumb to the urge to call a familiar voice. But the last time they talked was three weeks ago when she bumped into him after his debrief, and he told her Romania was nothing more than a job. They both knew deep down that was a lie.

Sean was quite the closest thing she had to a best friend. Of course she had Nikita, and Michael, and even Birkoff, but for the last few months she spent most of her time with him and they had grown comfortable with each other. Alex liked having him around— she liked _him. _It still surprised her sometimes if she really thought about it; she would have never guessed earlier this year that she would enjoy Sean Pierce's presence so _profusely_. She had always sort of respected him, after all he was nothing if not completely loyal. And even back when he was annoying as hell, she took ease in the fact that they had an understanding.

She liked watching his stoic and rigid disposition slowly melt away into a more attentive, warming presence. He could make her smile, and laugh too, because somewhere underneath all the tactical analytics and lectures about emotional distance, was a boyish charm that came equipped with wit and goofiness even. It had much to do with him finally breaking free from his commitments to Oversight and Division, she thought, not long after she had done the same with her trip to Russia. When it was just the two of them, he let his guard down, and often poked at her to do the same.

"_You gonna tell me what's wrong?"_ He'd ask, as if he knew her well enough to sense when she was upset.

She'd mostly just shrug him off. Maybe it was out of fear of him getting too close, or maybe her feelings were wound up so tight it would be too complicated to decompress, too messy. There was a good chance it was both.

But now everything was different, because instead of just taking the situation for what it was, Sean told her he _loved_ her and raised an ultimatum that she wasn't sure she could challenge.

Nikita was her family too, and Alex felt she owed it to her to see this whole fight through. _Here we go_, they'd say. They were in this thing together, and she couldn't just leave to ride off into the sunset. Besides, abandoning her mentor would never sit right with Alex's spirit. She figured Sean of all people should understand that type of unconditional allegiance.

All this thinking was actually beginning to make her quite resentful of him. As if she wasn't raging out enough these days, she nearly bit the heads off of anyone who talked to her. In fact, the last genuine gracefulness she reserved was specifically for Sean while approaching him to say thank you for the Romania job, only to soon be shot down by his cold demeanor.

She decided she would call and wait for a maximum of three rings, and if he did not answer (much like the other 400 times she had called this month) she'd stop for good. It was a childish mind-game, but it made things feel more concise.

First ring.

Second ring.

… A third…

She quickly smashed her finger to the 'end call' button, but somehow missed, and aimed again. The button didn't seem to work.

"Damnit!" She exclaimed.

"Alex?" She heard suddenly on the other end.

She hurriedly put the phone back to her ear. "Sean, uh hi, you picked up."

"Yeah. Is there something wrong?" His voice was thick with sleep; obviously he wasn't doing any late night pacing and contemplating calling an estranged lover at 4 in the morning.

"No I'm fine. I just- I needed to talk to you about something."

"You're aware it's 4am in New York right? Can this wait?"

"It's 4am here too."

"Where are you?" He was beginning to sound exasperated.

Honestly, he was perplexed by her late night phone call, because if it weren't for work then what else was she reaching out to say? As much as he wanted to continue to play detached and aloof, he knew what an effort it was for her to finally let her walls down, and he wasn't going to be the bastard to shut the metaphoric door in her face during such a vulnerable state.

"I'm in my apartment in Jersey." She told.

The problem with it all was that nothing about her situation had changed. Alex wasn't choosing to leave Division for good, so what else could she say to warrant this call? He made it clear there was nothing left to explain to him as long as she stayed. But that couldn't simply be the end for them, not after everything they had survived together and fought for.

It was apparent they were just as confused as each other.

"I just... I wanted to say, that I miss you, Sean." It was hard for her to admit.

He was still lying in his bed, but if he were moving the words probably would've stopped him in his tracks. There was a pause between the lines as he processed it, and Alex's pacing had rapidly increasing while anticipating his response.

"I miss you too." It was even harder for him to say. He had put up a new wall of his own since his departure and with just a few words she was already busy tearing it down. "Look, Alex, I don't want to put any pressure on you. With whatever you decide to do or not do, I respect that. I respect you. And I meant what I said." He paused again. "You know, before."

"I know." It was just all kinds of awkward now to reference back to since she had yet to confront his '_I love you_'. With all that said though, she realized she knew all along, despite playing oblivious and ignoring all his signals. "There's a dinner party tomorrow night, everyone's coming... Apparently it'll be terrorist-threat free and no rogue-agent invitations have been extended. We can party just like regular people." Usually it was him cracking jokes to ease the tension.

"That sounds like fun." His tone was flat. _Darn it_, she thought, as she forgot to say she was inviting him. Implying it just wasn't as appealing as being explicit at this point. There were so many gray areas to their relationship already, and she didn't want to add to any ambiguity. She had to give him something real.

"I was thinking you could be my date..." It was more of a statement than a question. She actually wasn't initially thinking that, more-so because she wasn't thinking about the party at all, but she jumped at the opportunity because it gave her an excuse to maybe see him again.

He slowed in his reply again and she was beginning to wonder if he was doing it on purpose.

"Uh, I don't know. There are a few things I need to take care of tomorrow."

"Um okay." She faltered. They were both so stupidly stubborn at all the wrong times. When he was open, she closed down. As she raised her peace offering, he blew her off.

Or he could possibly just be busy, but her bias swayed with the more dramatic explanation.

"I'll see what I can do, okay?" He felt bad to shut her down without any optimism, so he made up for it with a chance of his arrival.

"Yeah, okay. Goodnight Sean." She finally stopped pacing.

"Goodnight Alex."

She quickly hung up the phone and felt a sigh of relief release from her lungs.

As she walked back to her bed, blanket still enveloping her body, her fatigue transposed to exhaustion, and she finally lied down to get some real sleep.


End file.
